dependencies - In what order prerequisites will be made by the GNU make?

Question

Assuming we have the rule:

a: b c d e

and b, c, d and e are independent of each other.

Is the order of making b, c, d, e defined? It seems that generally they will be made in order b, c, d, e, but may it sometimes happen, that the order will be different?

Answer 1

No, the order is not defined. That is the whole point in using declarative dependency-oriented programming: that the computer can pick the optimal evaluation order, or in fact, evaluate them even at the same time.